I have a YouTube account that is under my Hotmail account. The issue I am having is that everytime I send an email to a contact that uses Gmail, the profile picture (that I use for my YT account) shows up as my profile picture in that email...I do not want a profile picture to show up, and I have no profile picture in my hotmail account. I want my youtube accounts profile picture to remain the same, but I don't want it to show up to contacts that use gmail when I send them an email. How do I delete/change the avatar that shows up in the emails I send?

1 Answer
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I think creating a Google profile fixes this. Google Profiles are now replaced by Google+ profiles, but as before, I think Google still takes the Google profile image of every user.

So, if you create a Google+ profile with the same Google account as you have your YouTube account with (probably just your Hotmail address) and upload a different profile picture to that profile, that picture will show up to Gmail users.

EDIT: You asked why this is so. Well,

Google uses your Google Profile as the identity of your Google Account. Your Google Account is used across all the Google products that you use. But it's also used to represent you to other Google users. Google+ profiles are the primary source for Google to create your identity but if you don't have one, they will take another identity they do have from you, f.e. your YouTube account.
Also, Google wants to show Gmail users more than only an e-mail address. If Google can link that address to a profile they have, they will show that (public) identity to users interacting with that address.

So basicaly, Google creates central identities for their users, which are combined from all their accounts on their services and uses these identities to identify you to all other users from all Google services.

Besides, Your Google+ profile just let's you define you identity inside Google's system. Google+ is in fact the social and identification layer to every Google product, so it's more than just a social network. You don't have to worry you won't use Google+ actively, just use it to define your identity.

I will try this and get back to you . Thank you for answering.
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birdOct 17 '12 at 23:17

My personal advise would be to consider using Gmail instead of Hotmail completely. It would automatically get you a Google profile as well.
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Steven RooseOct 17 '12 at 23:19

Hmm, I guess it works. Thankyou very much Steven. But the thing I'm not understanding is, why would google take it upon themselves to make my Youtube picture show up to my gmail contacts? And also, what happens to that google+ account because I am not interested in using it, I simply made it to change the picture (to default) that shows up to my gmail contacts??
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birdOct 17 '12 at 23:27

I answered your other question in the question, after EDIT. Please also consider marking this question as correct if it was so.
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Steven RooseOct 18 '12 at 0:34